. The
friends of his boyhood found him very little changed, the same lover of
Italy and the sea, the same adventurous, generous spirit he had been as
a youth in Nice.

In those youthful days his boy friends had followed him without
question, now the whole of Italy looked to him as their leader; he had
succeeded in doing what hundreds of other men had dreamed of doing,
driving the Austrians permanently out of the peninsula, and restoring to
his countrymen the ancient liberty of Italy. Yet whether as a boy upon
the Mediterranean or as the liberator of a nation he was always the same
frank, straightforward, high-minded Giuseppe Garibaldi.

XIX

Abraham Lincoln

The Boy of the American Wilderness: 1809-1865

Squire Josiah Crawford was seated on the porch of his house in
Gentryville, Indiana, one spring afternoon when a small boy called to
see him. The Squire was a testy old man, not very fond of boys, and he
glanced up over his book, impatient and annoyed at the interruption.

"What do you want here?" he demanded.

The boy had pulled off his raccoon-skin cap, and stood holding it in his
hand while he eyed the old man.

"They say down at the store, sir," said the boy, "that you have a 'Life
of George Washington,' I'd like mighty well to read it."

The Squire peered closer at his visitor, surprised out of his annoyance
at the words. He looked over the boy, carefully examining his long, lank
figure, the tangled mass of black hair, his deep-set eyes, and large
mouth. He was evidently from some poor country family. His clothes were
home-made, and the trousers were shrunk until they barely reached below
his knees.

"What's your name, boy?" asked the Squire.

"Abe Lincoln, son of Tom Lincoln, down on Pidgeon Creek."

The Squire said to himself: "It must be that Tom Lincoln, who, folks
say, is a ne'er-do-well and moves from place to place every year because
he can't make his farm support him." Then he said, aloud, to the boy:
"What do you want with my 'Life of Washington'?"

"I've been learning about him at school, and I'd like to know more."

The old man studied the boy in silence for some moments; something about
the lad seemed to attract him. Finally he said: "Can I trust you to take
good care of the book if I lend it to you?"

"As good care," said the boy, "as if it was made of gold, if you'd only
please let me have it for a week."

His eyes were so eager that the old man could not withstand them. "W